


Blue Fires

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Inconvenient Feelings, M/M, Uniform Kink, not quite established relationship, sort of sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:22:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9826241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: Hux makes a rare misstep by attempting to take their relationship to an entirely different level.Ren runs with it. But neither of them have any of idea of where this road is taking them.(Kind of sort of a sequel toMy Skin Is Theirs.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, a while back I started writing something that was theoretically a sort of Valentines Day fic, but then kind of quit halfway through and never finished it. And then over the weekend, what with the stuff about that novel doing the rounds, I suddenly remembered the file existed and that the whole basic structure of the story was there, so here it is. It's a follow on from [_My Skin Is Theirs_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9483398), because I am still haunted by that image, though it's more about their relationship's weird development at this point. Or something. I have no idea, it just happened this way...
> 
> The title comes from Delerium's [_Blue Fires_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0WxwKr1490) because I was listening to this album a lot while writing. And it works for me.

“This is a gift.”

Ren had known that. The mild festivity of the wrapping would have said as much, but then he wasn’t as much an idiot as Hux occasionally claimed. Still, he turned the thing over in his gloved hands twice more, and then looked up with a bewildered expression that the absent mask could not hide. “But… _why_?”

Despite the fact they stood behind closed doors, Hux’s ordered appearance had not changed. Still, something shifted about him; his aura had turned oddly disordered, out of alignment, or somehow out of tune. Though few were skilled in a way that would enable one to recognise it, to Ren’s accustomed ear, Hux seemed almost _flustered_.

But he spoke clearly and smooth, if a tad too quick. “There’s a Republic holiday—”

“This isn’t the Republic,” Ren interrupted, and Hux’s skin flushed, sudden and bright.

“I know that!” he snapped, the hands now fisted at his sides moving sharp and awkward to a forced parade stance at his back. The slight weight of him shifted, one foot to the other, and Ren began to wonder if he were imagining this entire encounter. “I simply—”

And he clamped his mouth shut then, without the slightest interruption from Ren. The way his gaze lingered heavy upon him, critical and silent, was the sort of encounter with the general that most of the lesser ranked officers had recurring nightmares about. Ren, for his part, only dropped his gaze to the package, with its simple paper and carefully folded lines. Without a word of his own he set about undoing it, revealing what Hux had thought worth concealing beneath.

With the small frame held tight enough in his fingers that the smooth crystal blossomed with a sudden filigree of cracks and tiny fractures, Ren attempted to draw a breath. It caught in his throat, burned there as if he’d swallowed live coal – and yet, his entire body had taken on a sheen of frost, as if he’d been cast out into the ice-riddled tundra of Starkiller’s vast wastes.

“I thought you destroyed these.”

His own voice had taken on an alien quality, hijacked by some other who could speak aloud while Ren’s own mind remained a mess of confusion and sudden hard, fierce arousal. Hux, for his part, let out a slow breath. It sounded as if he’d almost forgotten how to do it.

“I suppose it was a little more complicated than all that,” he muttered, and was already turning away. “I need to go.”

Ren’s head snapped up, even though the image on the small holo-frame before him felt all but seared onto his eyeballs. “But I don’t have something for you.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” It came almost gentle, with but the faintest hint of regret. “Good day, Ren.”

He should have said thank you. But Hux had disappeared before he’d even opened his mouth, staring still at the holo in his hands. Until this moment, Ren had never had the slightest indication from the man that Hux held any degree of shame in regards to these pictures – either those of the past, or those generated more closely to their shared present.

And this strange reality _was_ theirs, now – a time and place where Hux would present Ren with a very physical copy of a picture any other officer surely would have destroyed. That Ren had believed Hux actually _had_ destroyed. This was one of the very last of the original set, just after he had dropped the coat: slightly blurred, but even now Ren could feel the ghost of the tremor that had taken his hands at that moment. The general, tall and slim and impossibly white against the star-speckled darkness beyond him, the truest of smirks curving his generous lips upward, starlight liming him in an aura that made it seem he was, for a moment, burning silver fire.

Ren’s eyes slipped closed, opened almost immediately. Hux was a strange creature, indeed. Always professional and perfect – anywhere but within his own quarters. But this was far from that sanctuary, and Ren stared at the small frame held tighter than ever in his own gloved grip. He had not expected this. It was not any part of their arrangement.

But Hux’s unpredictable behaviour quite aside – not to mention the fact that it was impossible to tell how many _other_ pictures had survived the assumed purge – what seemed worse was the fact Ren had no gift of his own to offer in return. Reciprocity should not have been his concern. Whatever this was between them, it surely had nothing to do with the customs of a lifestyle one of them had murdered, and the other had never lived at all.

But Ren moved to requisitions, all the same. And a week passed much the same as always; Hux never once mentioned the awkwardness of the gift, and Ren had no answers for questions never asked. It began to change only one early morning, just after the beginning of Hux’s shift. Ren had been awake for some time even before that, careful in every aspect of his own dressing. When he at last moved to the bridge, every eye was drawn to him, though not in the manner he had long become accustomed to. If they paused today, it was only with an entirely unique confusion.

Ren kept his amusement to himself. It made a fine distraction to the squirming nervousness that twisted low in his gut as he moved close to the general. Only there did he stop at last, standing to attention at his shoulder as he awaited the man;s acknowledgement.

Hux did not give it immediately, deep in some complex back and forth with Unamo; the severely attired woman’s eyebrow raised as she turned to go, eyes passing over Ren with no small inquiry. But she left the questions to the general – and Hux’s eyes were heavy upon him now, his voice a whipcrack demand.

“And who are you?”

He’d never needed to learn the proper posture of a soldier – even in his past life, he’d slouched and slunk his way through many a formal event. But given the unhealthy amount of observation he’d given to the general as of late, Ren felt he was giving it a fair approximation now. “I am Lieutenant Naberrie,” he said, ignoring the terrible oddity of using his own voice in the company of so many who should not hear it so. “You summoned me, sir.”

“Ah.” So quickly did his features even out once more, for all his surprise had likely not been registered by anyone but Ren himself. “I had not expected your…very prompt arrival.” The rake of his eyes, from the toes of his boots, to the brim of the ridiculous cap, had all the pressure and warmth of familiar hands. Then, he turned to his silent aide-de-camp, tone clipped and brooking absolutely no questioning of his vast authority. “I am going to brief the lieutenant. Carry on. I will return shortly.”

Hux did not even wait for the man’s reply – already he moved at quick and careful clip across the raised platform that ran the length of the bridge, eyes fixed firmly ahead, greatcoat flaring about his calves. It would have been easy enough to catch up, to walk at his side. Ren kept two careful steps behind, until they both had entered the conference room.

Only when the door had locked firmly at their backs did Hux turn; with his gloved hands firmly about the table’s edge, he leaned back, eyes narrowed as he gazed down the length of his nose at Ren before him.

“What _is_ this?”

But Ren could sense no scorn, taste no disgust – Hux radiated only curiosity. His own answer could be nothing but simple. “A gift.”

“I see.” One hand rose, elbow cupped by the other palm; it did not mask the faint frown that prickled at his generous lips. “It _is_ a nice effort, but…you’ve clearly never worn the uniform before.” The glint that flickered in his eyes then reminded Ren of the way a targeting reticule lit up upon finding its lock. “Shall we start again?”

Even though Ren had long since suspected that Hux would have at least _some_ inclination towards a game such as this, standing before him now still had the strangeness of surprise, to have such a fierce and ravenous gaze turned upon him alone. It felt to be heating his skin, boiling his blood; Ren, who so rarely went without the extensive layers of his armoured robes, abruptly wished to be only naked.

But he had promised Hux a show, just by turning up on the bridge in this damned uniform. And so, piece by piece, Ren began to undo the false image of the eager young officer.

Hux, arms folded across his chest, slim hips leaning against the thick frame of the conference table, let out a sudden snort. “Well, well,” he murmured, and his tongue flickered out, just wet the lower curve of his pursed lips. “ _Those_ are most certainly not regulation, are they?”

Ren paused with thumbs hitched into the elasticated waistband, abruptly straightening to something like full attention. “No, sir.”

When he moved forward, it was with all the grace of a great hunter at play; even his greatcoat made no sound as Hux prowled close. One gloved hand shifted forward, came to rest upon his waist. And then he sighed, a sound somehow as put-upon as it was amused.

“I can’t have you running about my ship in such… _subversive_ attire.” Though their bodies touched not at all, Ren shivered at his very nearness; both hands had come upon his hips, thumbs curled into the thin material. When he shifted, he did so lightning-quick, lace scraping over thick thighs as he shoved him to his feet. And Hux tilted a grin, pressed the toes of one boot against a shin, forcing Ren a step back.

And then he caught the panties beneath the same boot-tip, flicked them upwards to snatch them from the air with a deft hand. “I suppose you’ll just have to go without,” he added, thoughtful. But it was with no trace of apology that he carefully folded the wisp of lace and silk into a neat square, one that disappeared into the pocket of his greatcoat.

Already Ren ached, naked here before the general in some anonymous conference room. But Hux barely looked at the flicker of his cock, half-hard between the taut thighs he so otherwise favoured. Instead Hux gave, in a voice he used with any and all subordinates, careful but concise instructions of how Ren should redress himself in the uniform – and properly, this time. The trousers, so well-fitted before, pulled terribly now at the crotch. Hux gave it only the most cursory of looks when he was done, and but briefly rolled his eyes. Biting his lip, Ren wondered if it were truly possible for him to come so untouched.

“Report to me at shift’s end,” Hux said, and Ren could have cried out in frustration. But Hux’s smirk was a promise of better yet to come, his hand pressed light against one hunched shoulder. “We’ll see what you’ve learned then, shall we?”

In was in the general’s own quarters that he stripped Ren bare, again. With knowing hands, he explored the great body hidden beneath seam and pressed crease and then, maddening in his madness, Hux dressed him once more. Beneath such sweet torture, Ren was hoarse and wordless, body alive in a way that only made him recall the first time he had held kyber in its palm. Then, he had felt its heft and its power and its _life_ , and had known that only he spoke the language in which it demanded its answer.

But Hux had not called him yet, instead moving about him with lips twisted and eyes narrowed, greatcoat still upon his shoulders. But whatever conclusions he reached, he kept them to himself. Ren knew soon enough of their general shape; Hux had stepped back, coat already shrugged to the floor, gloves tossed aside as he moved to undo the buckle of his belt. His eyes spoke of everything his stilled lips did not as Hux stripped himself bare. And Ren choked on his own shock: the panties were worn now about Hux’s own slim hips. He’d secured them neatly with small pins, and they hugged him close, instead of slipping down arse and hips as they ought to have.

But Hux’s bare fingers moved quick enough to their next task, undoing those small pins, sliding the lace down thighs and long calves. Ren’s own fingers twitched, mouth already dry to the sight of that revealed cock; he wished suddenly for nothing else than to take it between his lips, to draw it deep until he choked, drowning in whatever Hux offered him now.

But Hux instead only held out the panties. Wordless, his eyes made their own demand. With hands that trembled in a manner they never did elsewhere, Ren again removed the high boots, the strangely flared trousers, and the carefully gartered socks. But Hux allowed nothing further, nodding only to the clench of crumpled silk in his damp palm.

Dressed in the cap and tunic of a First Order Lieutenant, Ren stepped into the panties, one leg by one; there he drew them upwards, gasping at the way the lace cradled his balls; his cock no longer fit, the leaking head peeking out over the top hem where it pressed tight to his belly. Hux only chuckled, one light hand on his waist turning him around, shifting him forward.

There, with gloved hands braced against the transparisteel, with Starkiller below and the _Finalizer_ beyond and the Unknown Regions arrayed around them all, Hux slid the panties aside – just a little, just enough. Slick fingers pressed their way inside, the torment of the day already enough for Ren’s muscles to have turned pliant, welcoming. And he said things he might have regretted, then, as Hux’s cock slid deep and to the hilt. But Hux, perhaps, as a child of the fallen Empire, had never learned such dialect. Certainly he fucked him hard and fast against the window, utterly at odds with the tangle of soft and desperate thought that spilled from within Ren’s own mind.

They did eventually make it back into his bedroom, the rest of the uniform rapidly discarded so that Hux could straddle him, mapping a path across the topography of his body with lazy hands. Eventually such movement roused them both again, with Hux this time pressing back onto Ren’s standing cock. With his own dick pressed tight against and between Ren’s pectoral muscles, he rode them both to release with a hazy, far-away look in eyes that seemed far more blue than green today.

Though they had never really discussed the precise etiquette of their relationship, Ren had never presumed to actually sleep in Hux’s bed. But he had been known to linger. He did so now, upon his back, staring at the ceiling as he listened to Hux’s breathing at his side: lengthening, slowing, guiding his way into sleep.

Ren had fallen to contemplating rising, then finding and consuming a glass of water before dressing and returning to his own quarters, when the sleepy voice at his side rose. It wreathed about him like sweet-scented smoke, and he closed his eyes, breathed deep of its siren call.

“Naberrie.” His eyes popped open, bright and blinking; Hux only raised a languid eyebrow in return. “An odd choice, to be sure.”

“My own choice,” he said, perhaps too quick, certainly too harsh. Then, with a bitterness not unexpected but also unintended, “As much as I ever had one.”

He had said too much. Even as he wished only to reach out, to pluck those words from the air and devour them whole and screaming, Hux seemed content enough to let it lie. Again, Ren had been lulled to the sense that Hux had fallen asleep when he spoke once more.

“If you’re getting one for yourself, do get a glass of water for me, too.”

Sometimes Ren found it impossible to believe that he himself was the telepath between the two of them. But he rose, all the same; his own thirst had only grown, especially given Hux appeared to keep his bedroom temperature ever so slightly too high. As he reached for the shirt, a muttered protest stilled his hand.

“Don’t spoil the view.”

Ren went nude instead, feeling Hux’s hungry gaze upon his arse as he crossed the room. For all he had the intellectual understanding that the aesthetics of his body were appealing, to be naked without immediate reason was never something he’d thought to be comfortable with. But: behind these doors, and within this bed, Hux would have it no other way.

Upon his return from the small ‘fresher, Ren found Hux now sitting up, the regulation coverlet pooled about his hips. As Ren took a seat upon the bed’s edge, Hux took the offered glass without so much as a thank you, drinking long and deep. Ren’s own thirst went unsated for the meantime, for all he’d had water enough himself; despite his own satiation of not so long ago, and his own encroaching desire for sleep, his dick stir again. As he set the glass down Hux’s eyes flickered over where the damned thing twitched between his thighs. And Hux, all too aware of his own physical appeal, let his lips curl with fresh amusement.

“Do you really want to go again?”

“Yes.” It could hardly be anything but honest with such blatant evidence between them. But it was also the truth when he added, quieter, “it’s also very late.”

“Yes.” Something turned distant in his eyes, then. “It is. Very much too late.”

Ren should be rising. He should be _leaving_. For his own part Hux was already lying down again, making no move towards his ‘fresher – though Ren had learned very early on that he hated to fall asleep without washing first, if he could avoid it. It was but one indication of the oddness about him this evening. It reminded Ren of how he’d felt the strange resonance of Hux’s aura the day he’d given him the first of their gifts. And something shifted deep inside him, then, like an old name whispered upon some distant breeze.

“There are days when I wish I had another name.”

Ren frowned, actually startled. “Truly?”

When Hux rolled his head towards him, his expression held a strangely vulnerable set, a sort of self-deprecation that did not suit him at all. “What pleasure could I _really_ take in a name such as mine?”

Ren had never even spoken his given name aloud. He did not have any memory of anyone else doing so, either – and that included Hux himself.

“It’s yours,” he said, at last, and did not have to pretend the sudden fierce heft of the words. “When your surname is recalled by history, it will be _you_ they remember as the face of it.”

One hand rose, pressed back the damp tangle of his hair. “Perhaps,” he said, a quiet resentment never far from the surface. “Of course, my father would be absolutely disgusted to know of _this_.” One hand shifted along his naked side, the touch feather-light and yet somehow utterly possessive. “Your extraordinary power quite aside, you are far from what the Order holds most dear. You are chaos, Kylo Ren. And not even I could ever hope to tame you.”

Something twisted low in his gut, like a vibroblade pressed deep amongst the organs. “And _you_ are everything the Order ever desired. Lawful and dedicated only to that which will bring the galaxy to ultimate peace.”

The curl of a smile still came bitter, and Hux closed his eyes. The sigh that followed managed to be both light, and somehow terribly heavy. “ _Naberrie_ ,” he said, again, like an invocation. It sent a shudder through Ren, rich and resonant beneath goose-prickled skin. No, it was not the name that had been declared verboten. Still, in the eyes of his Master, it could still perhaps be something like a sin.

And Hux’s eyes opened, sudden sharp demand. “Do you keep in contact with her?”

Ren blinked, just once. He’d never spoken to Snoke of this. He did not doubt that he knew of their exploits all the same. “You shouldn’t be asking me that,” he replied, but it came more weary than accusing.

“No.” His eyes had turned to the ceiling, anonymous and blank. “I shouldn’t.”

In the silence that followed, Ren looked only to Hux. While he was perfectly aware of the fate of his father, a man of some talent who had overreached their limits, he had no idea of what had become of the man’s mother. “I haven’t spoken to her in years,” Ren said, the words like ash upon his tongue. “Since months before I broke with Skywalker, even.”

He didn’t blink. He didn’t even move. “But you think of her.”

“Hux—”

“It’s fine,” he said, sudden as he rolled over, eyes very green and very dark as they met his now. “Forget that I asked.”

But he surely realised Ren would not. “I didn’t know,” he said, at last, and he hated that he could hear the uncertainty in the words. “For the longest time. That Amidala was my grandmother.”

Hux, still upon his back, smoothed the sheet over his waist. “Whatever her political beliefs, she was quite the woman.”

“My mother knew, though.” Ren had returned to staring at his hands, open and cradled in his own lap. “That’s the reason why I never had any siblings.”

“Because of the Senator?”

Curious as the words were, Ren could hear what lay unspoken beneath: _and_ _not because of the Sith Lord?_ “Padmé Amidala died in childbirth. Her physicians thought it strange, though not unique. They ended up doing extensive research into why. Apparently it was a genetic anomaly, common enough to humans born on Naboo.” His hands shifted, tangled. “My mother found out she was pregnant not long after she was told of her true parentage. Padmé had been a friend to her parents. She had the testing done immediately.”

Hux had hiked himself up on one elbow, face twisted with a sudden scowl. “But you’re both here now.”

“And she had tested positive for the marker.” He spoke the next words as flat as he could, even if his heart was a throbbing jagged mass in the prison of his aching chest. “She decided to have me anyway.”

A little humming breath, and Hux so very nearly chuckled. “Well. She has always struck me as the particularly stubborn type.”

“ _He_ thought they should get rid of me.” The words tumbled out, like intestines spilled from a low abdominal blow. “That it was too _dangerous_.” He all but spat, then, his fingers tight and clawed as the fists they made yearned for flesh, for bone broken beneath their rage. “It was _her_ he worried about, more than me. It’s always been that way.”

Hux had gone very still, though Ren sensed not the slightest fear from him – only the purest incredulity. “And they _told_ you this?”

“No.” And he subsided in upon himself, looking down to the red crescents even his blunt nails had cut into the callused palms of his shaking hands. “No. Snoke did.”

Hux held his tongue, but it mattered not. Much as he could not divine the exact nature of his thoughts, Ren was aware of them, the twisted tight tangle of them growing with every moment. And he shook his head, pursed his lips.

“He always wanted me to be angry about it. And sometimes I was, I guess. But…she was very young. And he’d never wanted to settle down. To go from war to a kid and marriage and rebuilding the galaxy?” A short laugh, utterly without humour, was all he could spare to mask the agony of it. “I was lowest on the list of priorities. But I was still on it. For what it was worth, in the end.”

His hand was light about his forearm, too warm. “Ren.”

“Don’t.”

But he didn’t pull away, and Hux did not retreat. Ren fixed his eyes upon the scattered pieces of the uniform, slovenly in the way they’d been left on the floor. Hux would never had done that with his own uniform. But then, even when tailored to him, it had not really fit his frame properly. It could not hope to match the manner Hux himself wore it: as a second skin, armoured and strong over the first, as perfected in construction and purpose as the human beneath.

“I don’t even know who my mother was.” At Ren’s startled look, Hux smiled, as broad and brittle as any mummer’s mask. “Maratelle, my stepmother, couldn’t have children of her own. Apparently Brendol grew tired of the waiting, and went and got a child without her.” One hand rose, waved as if it mattered not at all – but it fell heavy back upon the bed. “I couldn’t even tell you whether or not _anything_ about my conception, birth, or custodial transfer was voluntary.”

Ren ached, wished for nothing more than to lie upon this bed, and move close to the person to whom it belonged. “And yet here we are,” he said, bitter and unmoving. “Masters of our own destinies.”

And Hux snorted. “At least it ends with me.” His eyebrow rose at Ren’s frown, the clarification all but rolling from his tongue. “I’m never having children of my own.”

The sharp finality of it, like the squadron leader calling for the trigger-pull of a firing squad, left something cold and hollow in him. “But isn’t it basically a requirement of the Order?”

“I don’t care about that.” Ren stared openly now, almost aghast to here such light treason spoken in the voice of the Order’s most favoured officer. But Hux looked only upward, his face in profile like a cameo carved in the ivory of some long-dead trophy creature. “I will leave my legacy in other ways, you can be sure of it. But not like that.”

He felt to be sinking in the silence that followed, but he could not be sure that he did not _want_ to drown. And Hux sighed, turned his head.

“Be honest,” he said, and it was very nearly kind. “Do you _actually_ believe you’ll have children of your own?”

Ren closed his eyes, head bent like a penitent before the shrine. “When I was younger I just assumed I would,” he said, slow, very painful. “And…I suppose she always thought I’d settle down with some firebrand Republic girl. One with a fine Rebellion pedigree, and all that.”

A sniff, and Hux’s voice turned light in its affectation. “I’m afraid I’d only disappoint her high standards, then.”

And Ren turned, staring down at Hux laid out beneath him. “Fuck her.”

The long aristocratic length of his nose wrinkled. “I’d really rather not.”

He wished in that moment to do nothing more than lean down, to press his weight and his nakedness against the man there, and take of him all that he would offer. Instead, quiet again, Ren looked over to the door. “I should go.”

Hux gave no indication of his opinion. Ren in turn made no motion to rise. The uniform lay when Hux had discarded it. Ren himself had no desire to put it back together. He’d rather just leave it all in pieces, warm and close, upon the floor of Hux’s own quarters.

“What should I call you?”

Those strange eyes were sharp on him when Ren turned to meet them. “What?”

“You said you chose it. Naberrie.” He spoke too quick, sharp in this strange impatience. “But that was just… _this_.” One hand took in the mess they’d left in their wake, desperate to be horizontal upon the bed. “But what about the naming of a knight? Was that Snoke? Did _he_ do that?”

His Master had done many things. But one of those had been to take a misshapen child, and remake him into something strong and worthwhile. Something with real value outside of a name and awkward mismatched features.

“No,” Ren said, perhaps on the edge of too quiet. “No, that was me. Just me.”

“Well.” Some shadow crossed his features, then, even in the bright ambient light of his own quarters. And then he was rolling over, words clear and simple. “Goodnight then. Kylo.”

And in the half-dark that followed, he could not help but ask. “Who named you?”

A snort came from him though he kept his head turned away, leaving only the red hair in view. “Nobody named me.” Then, before Ren could speak: “Maratelle told me that it was the first name that came up when Brendol was filling in the formwork. But it wasn’t as if he cared _what_ the name was. He just wanted a Hux boy. That was all that mattered to him.”

Though he remained in the posture of someone who intended nothing more than to sleep, the stiffness of both his spine and his spirit radiated ever outward like the edges of a fresh bleeding bruise. Ren pressed his lips together, but still the words escaped.

“It matters to me.”

Immediately he turned back, bright eyes glinting in the gloom that remained with the main lights put out. But Ren had never backed down from a challenge that meant something to him – a stubbornness of purpose that he supposed was bred into every gene he’d inherited. After a moment, Hux rolled back over. But it did not take him away. Instead he pushed closer, face up against his shoulder. A sigh, and the next words came like a confession.

“I did like you in uniform.”

Something twisted in him, tight and tearing. “What, you want me to wear it every day?”

“No.” And he sighed again, as if frustrated with something that went beyond himself. “I want the _knight_. The knight has his place.” He paused, overlong and tense. “But…now and then…”

This close, Ren could soothe himself with the constant metronome of his breathing, the simple rhythm of a strong heartbeat. And Hux said nothing more, perhaps already taken deep by the promise of his vast dreams.

“Good night.” Ren had always been the one to dare disturb the universe. He barely breathed the word, its sound like the a ripple across the Force itself, light and soft and so very very strange.

“…Armitage.”

No reply came – just the sound of something that might have been sleep. In that almost-silence, Ren closed his own eyes, and supposed it was invitation enough to follow him down into the same.


End file.
